Sea ice coverage data have been collected by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in the polar regions since mid 1987.  The sea ice coverage is measured daily using  the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) mounted on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F8, F11 and F13 platforms.  The original data are binned daily and monthly on a polar stereographic projection.

This site presents subsets of these data near the south pole, from October 1996 to April 1998, re-mapped to an equal-angle grid of approximately 9 km resolution.  The purpose of this re-mapping is to ease comparison of the sea ice coverage data with mapped data from other satellite sensors such as SeaWiFS.  Both the re-mapped data and the re-mapped images are freely available to download from this site.  The data in their original format may be requested from the NSIDC.

This study is part of an ongoing research effort in the Southern Ocean by the Oregon State University (O.S.U.) Remote Sensing Ocean Optics (ORSOO) group.  Sea ice data provided by the EOS Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.

Webpage by Jasmine S. Bartlett, Oregon State University.